Indian youth arrested for stealing and selling Microsoft product keys

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), India’s foremost investigating police agency, has arrested a man for stealing product keys of various Microsoft products and selling them online. The convict has been identified as “D. Prabhu.”

A complaint was lodged by Microsoft, which lead the agency to investigate and find the person who was causing a loss to the software giant. Prabhu is suspected to have hacked into government websites which use Microsoft’s software, and possibly steal their licensed product keys. The bureau is still quantifying the exact loss.

The agency has filed a case under different sections of the IT Act 2000 on the allegations that Microsoft Volume License Service Centre (VLSC) agreements in many respects were violated. The CBI has also recovered several hard drives, a router, and a number of Microsoft product kits and other documents from the convict’s home. The agency also froze his bank account in which he used to collect the sale amount.

Software piracy and online fraud have become sort of custom in the nation. While CBI’s success in tracking down Prabhu is appreciable, we are looking at a very big culprit business here. The ease with which one can purchase pirated copies of Windows software (or any other product) is rather shocking.